


Study Date

by allthewayfromatoz



Series: bare: A Pop Opera Oneshots [2]
Category: bare: A Pop Opera - Hartmere/Intrabartolo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superpowers, Confession, Fluff, Getting Together, Hint of Angst, Love Letters, M/M, Psuedonym, Secret Admirer, Secret Identity, Wholesome, it’s not really all that secret tho lol, just a hint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-09-19
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:55:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26544046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthewayfromatoz/pseuds/allthewayfromatoz
Summary: Peter has been receiving love letters from a Secret Admirer, and although at first it found it creepy, he couldn’t have helped but to warm up to them over time.Peter sighs with a dopey smirk on his face at the signature written in loopy lettering at the bottom in the page:Lovingly, Julie.
Relationships: Jason McConnell/Peter Simmonds
Series: bare: A Pop Opera Oneshots [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927540
Comments: 1
Kudos: 13





	Study Date

**Author's Note:**

> Just a wholesome little magic AU I thought up using a fic prompt generator. https://bleep0bleep.tumblr.com/prompts
> 
> Also, Peter can control water while Jason can control air.

Peter opened up the, probably, millionth love letter this week absentmindedly while manipulating the water in his water bottle into his mouth. He had just gotten back from rehearsal after all, and all the singing had left him parched.

He admired the little lipstick kiss that had recently begun to appear in the bottom right corner of the letters with a content sigh. He chuckled lightly and held it close to his chest, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in, imagining what it might be like to feel those lips against his. 

He turned around to his locker, which he was previously leaning against, and tucked the letter into the little folder he had begun to keep in his locker a few months ago to hold the letters. 

His locker was rather bare; he hadn't bothered to decorate it. There was a playbill from the most recent school musical (Mary Poppins, in case you were wondering; he was Bert), his schoolbooks, a spare charger, a few stray pencils, and random trash like gum wrappers and chapstick.

All this to say, it had caught Jason so off guard when Peter hung up a dedicated folder for just the letters. Peter's explanation was that they came so often and they were so sweet he would've felt bad just leaving them floating in his locker. The letters deserved better than that.

At that Jason had cleared his throat and excused himself to the bathroom, an achievement Peter was rather proud of if he did say so himself. 

Peter couldn't help but smirk and chuckle lightly at the elegant signature right next to the lipstick mark, signed,

_Lovingly, Julie_

He placed the letter in the ever-growing folder of letters and made mental note to get a bigger one before shutting his locker and heading to the library for his bi-weekly study date with Jason.

He noticed the way Jason's head snapped up when he entered the room, but quickly went back down to his work.

Peter stifled the giggle that rose in his chest and pretended like he hadn't noticed Jason's attempt at being cool and plopped into his seat. Well, it wasn't _his_ seat, but it _was_ the seat he sat in every time he and Jason went to the library for a study 'date'. They weren't real dates. After all, Jason was 'straight'. Peter couldn't help but laugh at the thought. 

Jason looked up from his notebook--yellow for math, which they had had an entire argument about because yellow was obviously the color for ELA, not math--and smiled,

"What's so funny?"

Peter just shook his head and spun up a lie on the spot,

"I'm thinking of that time we argued about the color of your notebook."

"Yeah, I don't know what madman you are, thinking red is for math, but we agreed to disagree. No need to bring up old stuff."

"You don't sound like you're fine with that, though."

"That's because I'm not. How can I be fine with my best friend thinking red is for _math_? Now, get your ugly _red math_ notebook out so we can finish this up and go back to the dorm room."

Peter for a moment considered pointing out that they could just as easily get their work done in the dorm as the library, but he opted instead to take some of the water from the nearby fountain and slap Jason across the face with it.

Jason didn't even flinch, snapping his hand up and sending a gust of wind into Peter's face without looking away from his work even once.

Peter was caught off guard and accidentally dropped the water, soaking Jason's hair and notebook. 

Jason looked up, sopping wet, curly hair now curtaining his face, and sent Peter a glare. Peter swallowed a guffaw and muttered a small apology before manipulating the water into leaving the notebook and Jason's hair alone.

Jason sent a swipe of wind towards Peter to tussle his hair and clothes, smirking,

"Now we're even." 

Peter scrunched up his nose and backed down, defeatedly opening up his notebook and pulling out his pencils.

Jason, surprisingly smoothly, asked without stopping his homework,

"So, any more letters from this mysterious 'Julie'?"

Peter resisted the urge to smirk and smiled,

"Yeah, got a new one today. She's sending even more now, I'll have to get a bigger folder soon. I wonder who it is. Sounds like a lovely person..."

Peter momentarily looked up from his work and confirmed his suspicions when he saw Jason blushing and staring so hard at the notebook page that you might believe he was trying to bore holes right through it with just the power of sight. He chose not to comment. Jason cleared his throat,

"That sounds nice. You think you...um...y'know...have any clue on who it might be?"

Peter nonchalantly shrugged,

"Not really sure yet. I know Julie goes to this school and is in our grade, but that's about it. Honestly, it's a surprise I _don't_ know her. We are fifteen, and we have been going to this school since we were, like, 11."

Jason's little chuckle was raw nervousness dipped in a thin, sugary coat of humor,

"Haha, yeah. Isn't that weird?"

Peter met Jason's eye while cocking his brow,

"Yeah..."

Peter smirked,

"Weird..."

Jason frantically went back to his math problems, scribbling at his page fervently. Peter was honestly surprised that the paper hadn't caught on fire yet. 

He went on with his homework and tried to ease the conversation along,

"So, do you have some special person? One of the many girls fawning over your mysteriously acne-free face?"

Jason chuckled at Peter's jealousy and slipped into confidence, smiling softly,

"Not crushing on any girls right now, no."

Peter didn't miss Jason's odd specificity in his answer. He decided to take a leap of faith, he had one foot off the edge,

"What about-,"

But he pulled back, not moving off the cliff just yet,

"-nevermind."

A look of curiosity and hope flashed across Jason's face but was quickly covered up,

"No, wait. What were you gonna say?"

Fuck.

"Oh, it's nothing. Don't worry about it."

"No, I'm curious. I wanna know what you were thinking."

Peter was slightly taken aback,

"...you really don't. It's not that interesting."

"It's _you_. It _must_ be interesting."

"I-"

Peter could feel the heat rushing to the tips of his fingers and subconsciously rubbed his hands against his pants. He chuckled anxiously,

"I'm not exactly _interesting_."

Jason had his elbow on the table and leaned his chin onto his hand and chuckled slightly,

"Everything about you is interesting."

Peter leaned forward in curiosity, feeling an inexplicable pull to know more. Jason lifted his head from his chin and leaned forward as well. Peter set his hands down on the table and leaned on them while standing up. They pulled together and-

"GAY!"

Peter and Jason turned their heads to the source of the sound to see one of Jason's teammates shouting at them from another table. He was very quickly shushed by the librarian.

Jason quickly sat back down in his seat, hiding his face in his hands. Peter could feel a twist in his stomach and swallowed the bit of bile that rose in his throat. He followed Jason's lead and hunkered back down in his seat as well. Peter mumbled,

"I hate teenage boys."

"But... _we're_ teenage boys."

"Exactly."

Peter snuck a glance at the boy who had shouted at them and realized a second too late the boy was making a rather lude face and miming swallowing...a liquid.

Peter looked back towards Jason, who was hunching his shoulder over, and then looked back at the boy, who still had his mouth wide open. How hilarious; at least it was to the boy's friends. Peter packed up Jason's stuff, ignoring the confused look Jason was sending him. He grabbed Jason's wrist and dragged him up and out of the seat, and went to leave the library. 

Peter held his head up high, and as he passed by the boy, he could feel his emotions taking control. Oh no. 

Energy rose in him and tingled in his fingertips. His power summoned the water out of the boy's stupid little Gatorade squirt water bottle and shoved it down the boy's throat.

The boy's eyes widened in panic along with Peter's as he tried to get it to _stop_. Peter's power manipulated the rest of the water into a hand, forcing it over the boy's mouth so he couldn't open it. Peter shouted,

"Wait, wait! No, stop! Stop it!"

Other people began to take notice of what was happening and pulled out their phones to record.

All the cameras pointing at him only made it worse. Peter reached out his hand and pulled, trying desperately to tug the water away, but it felt like someone shoved a baseball down his throat and was wringing his stomach out dry, and he couldn't control it. He couldn't control anything, it seemed. 

He squeezed his eyes shut tight and tried not to let the tears flow when he suddenly felt a gush of wind sent through him. 

Jason walked up and sent a gust of wind, moving the water away from the boy's mouth. The boy fell to his knees and began to cough up the water, sputtering and spattering. 

Peter stood in place, still in shock as to what just had happened. He took a step forward to check if the boy was alright. He was horrified when his extended hand was met with fear as the boy flinched. 

The air was still, unmoving. The was no sound; not to Peter's ears at least. His hands were numb and he couldn't feel anything. So you must believe his surprise when he felt his body running out and away, the slam of the door slicing through the cotton fuzz around his ears. 

He arrived back in his and Jason's dorm room and stood in front of the mirror staring at himself. 

Jason burst in shortly behind him and stopped right behind Peter. He looked Peter in the eye through the mirror,

"Are you okay?"

Peter dug his nails into his wrist as he wrapped his arms around himself and answered,

"I could have killed him."

Jason jumped in surprise and went to reach out towards Peter but pulled back at the last moment,

"No no no, you couldn't have killed him."

"Yes, I could have."

"He could still breathe, your power wasn't blocking his nose or anything. And I swept the water out of the way, he couldn't have dry drowned. The nurses can get the water out of his lungs if any got in, but I doubt it did."

"But still! If you hadn't stepped in, I could have murdered him! Right then and there!"

Jason sighed and took another step towards Peter,

"It wasn't you. It was your powers and emotions. You can't control those."

Peter looked down,

"My emotions are mine! He made me angry and I lashed out and that's my fault."

Jason slowly began,

"I know you're mad because he called you gay. I get it. It's-"

Jason looked like he might just be sick. He tried to cover it up with a broken-down wall, but you could still see through the cracks.

"It's not cool. But you can't control your emotions."

Peter, once again, decided to take a leap of faith. But this time, you followed through,

"That's not what made me mad, y' know."

"Huh?"

Peter couldn't help but giggle slightly at Jason's taken aback and surprised tone.

"I didn't care that they called me gay. I cared that...that they made you sad. So I got angry."

He chuckled as he continued,

"That is...an extremely childish way to explain what I was feeling, but hey. We're children. We do stupid things and say things we don't mean and don't know big words yet. Well, most of us don't. Anyway, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that they made you sad which made me mad which made me lose control of my emotions and of my powers. I couldn't care less what exact word they had used."

Jason had a vacant look on his face, so Peter turned around to face him and tilted his head in concern.

"Jason? What's wrong?"

Jason sweetly smiled this dopey smile that made Peter melt,

"I just-...nobody's really cared that much about it. I'm always just told to suck it up...take care of myself..."

Peter reached his hand out and swept Jason's hair away from the boy's face,

"Oh Jason, I care. I really do."

Peter's fingers traced down to Jason's cheek and he rested his palm against Jason's smile, which faltered,

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Even if...there was...something. Something about me that...you didn't like."

Peter knew where Jason was going with this. He offered the best thing he could,

"It's you. You're my favorite person. If I'm being honest, if you told me right now that you killed someone I'd help you hide the body. No hesitation. That's what I'm here for, right?"

Jason chuckled,

"...to hide bodies?"

Peter chuckled back,

"'Yup. Whoever it might be."

Peter snuck a glance at Jason's lips and leaned forward just the slightest bit, before pulling away. No.

Jason needed to tell Peter when he was ready. He couldn't make a move yet.

Jason cleared his throat and sat down on the bed.

"Speaking of bodies, do you...um...do you have any plans on Julie?"

"...that was a horrible transition."

"Julie has a body..."

Peter sat down on the bed about a foot away from Jason and trod carefully in his answer,

"...look, you seem to be worried about...um...Julie...so just forget about being smooth about it and go on."

Jason avoided eye-contact like meek prey trying to avoid being eaten by a predator. Peter wanted to wrap Jason up in a blanket and cuddle him senseless and kiss him until he turned blue, but he couldn't. Not quite yet.

Jason began to fiddle and wring his fingers through his nervousness, feeling sick in more ways than one.

"What if...what if Julie is just like...a prank? What if she's not real? Do you...do you think you would be okay?"

Peter tried to cover his desperation the best he could. God, they were dancing around each other but if only the music aligned to they could become the other's partners. Figuratively and literally. 

"Well, um, I think I would be fine. Sure, I would miss the letters, but it's not like I know Julie. She doesn't really have a personality I could miss."

Peter tacked on,

"Not like you. I would miss you too much."

Peter watched Jason relax at the multiple reassurances, and shuffle his feet and the not-so-subtle compliment. Jason took a deep breath,

"Okay, okay. Okay. That's good to hear."

Peter took a chance,

"Any...particular reason why that's 'good to hear'?"

Jason's eyes snapped up and he quickly sputtered,

"Oh no, nothing at all! I just..."

Jason looked up in the top left corner of his vision,

"I wouldn't want my best friend to get heartbroken!"

The lie was practically see-through. It was like looking at a window, straight into Jason's deepest inscurities.

Peter took a deep breath and laid it on thick,

"Well, even if I was, you would be there to help me put it back together. That's why you're-"

Peter panicked for a moment on how to address Jason,

"-you're my favorite."

Jason blushed a deep red as the blood rushed to his face, and Peter tried to seem innocent.

"You look hot. Are you okay? Want me to grab you some water?"

Jason cleared his throat,

"Oh. Um. Yeah. Yes please. That'd be great, thank you."

Peter smiled sweetly as he picked up the water--and thus the plastic as well--with his power and brought it over to Jason,

"Drink up!"

Jason smiled sheepishly and downed half the bottle before stopping to breath. 

"Thanks."

"Any time."

Jason looked down for a few seconds, furrowing his eyebrows and seeming like he was concentrating, then decided that the sheets were especially interesting and began to stare at those.

"Peter,"

Peter prepared himself,

"Yes?"

"Are you sure, like really sure, that you would still like me if you found out I murdered someone?"

"I wasn't being exaggerative earlier when I said I would help you hide a body. I would."

"What if I did something...worse. Well, not worse, but still really bad."

"It's you. What could you possibly have done?"

Jason took a deep breath,

"imayormaynotkindasortalikeboys."

Peter had to physically restrain himself from tackling Jason and kissing him right then and there. He opted instead for a simple little,

"Oh, really?"

Jason began to move his hands around wildly, defending himself,

"I don't know why I don't want to be like this but it just sorta happened one day and I've been trying to stop it but nothing has worked and there's this one boy I really really like and I can't get myself to stop thinking of him and-"

"Jason, it's okay. I know you didn't ask to be...to like boys. Umm..can I...can I know who this boy is?"

Jason looked Peter up and down,

"No. Please understand that I just don't wanna tell you-"

"It's fine."

Peter smirked and decided to shoot his shot,

"Tell Julie that I really really like him too."

"Yeah okay, I will-wait, what?"

Peter giggled softly and looked Jason in the eyes,

"I really really like you too. And I really really appreciate the love letters. Like I said, you're my favorite person."

Jason's eyes clouded and Peter's heart dropped,

"Are you playing with me? Because you're not the guy I like. And, it's not cool to mess with me like that."

Peter hurried to explain,

"What? No no no, I'm not trying to mess with you. I like you, I really do. And I really like boys. I know that you're Julie. And what I feel about 'Julie' changed--for the better--once I learned it was you."

Jason stood up from the bed and away from Peter,

"Is this some kind of sick joke? I'm not Julie."

Peter stood up and maintained eye contact with Jason,

"Jason, I love you. I love you so much. You're my absolute favorite person in the world."

Jason took another step back, only to feel a wall. He sputtered out,

"St-stop lying. Look it's not cool to play with my feelings like this-"

"Jason, I'm not playing! I love you, I really do,"

Peter pleaded with Jason. He bit his lip and furrowed his eyebrows in frustration,

"God, how can I show you?"

Jason attempted to steal the high ground back,

"The only possible way you could ever show me is if you kissed me."

"Can I?"

Jason's eye's widened. Peter had caught his bluff. Noticing his apprehension, Peter took a small step back,

"You don't have to, obviously."

Jason's eyes involuntarily flick up and down, scanning Peter's perfect body. Peter didn't miss this. He straightened up and adjusted his shirt self-consciously. 

Jason catches Peter's eye again and they lock. 

Jason nods his head, steps towards Peter, closes his eyes tight, and throws away the key. 

He steadies forward for a gentle peck, his body standing still. 

To his surprise and utter excitement, Peter immediately kisses back, starved of this for years.

Peter picks his hands up and wraps his arms around Jason's neck, pulling tight and curving his body into Jason's, catching Jason completely off-guard. 

Peter is practically insatiable, and, to both of their surprises, Jason is willing to feed that.

Neither of them had any clue of what was going on or what they were doing, but it was magical all the same. The passion and love brimmed out of them, their powers taking control.

Air circled around them, lifting up the hem of their shirts. The sweat lifted off of them and mingled with the moisture in the air, heating up and trailing their skin.

As the kiss deepened and they walked to the bed, the air got even stronger and lifted them up off the fabric, and the water caressed their faces.

They separated a moment for air, and felt themselves drop down onto the bed, hearing the springs push down. The elements calmed down, but they were still buzzing with excitement. You could feel it in the air.

Peter still held Jason's cheek and smiled sweetly,

"Did I prove it?"

Jason couldn't help but lean into the touch and grab Peter's hand in his, and feel content, and free and open for the first time in forever,

"Yes."

They both broke out into wide smiles and they knew many things. Things would be rough. Things wouldn't be easy. But whatever it was.

They had each other.

”Quick question: how did you do the kiss marks?”

Jason laughed self-consciously,

”I stole some of Nadia’s lipstick...thought it might throw you off my trail...”

Perer chuckled at Jason,

“Dork. Hey, wanna try some on?”

Jason scrunched up his face and shook it back and forth, causing Peter to laugh,

”I was only joking. You’re cute.”

He pecked Jason on the forehead.

”You’re cuter.” 


End file.
